While the governors of Virginia and Maryland say they are moving toward an initial reopening of their economies as early as mid-May, Mayor Muriel Bowser said Wednesday that she’s not yet setting a date for when D.C. might follow suit.

The contrasting announcements are a reflection of how the three jurisdictions — which come together in the densely populated Washington region — are trying to coordinate responses to the coronavirus pandemic as much as possible, while also respecting diverging realities in the large portions of Virginia and Maryland that are exurban or rural.

Earlier this week, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said that some businesses could start reopening as soon as mid-May. On Wednesday, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said declining hospitalizations and other positive signs could clear the way for a limited reopening in the next two weeks.

“If these trends continue into next week, we will be ready to lift the stay at home order and to begin Stage One,” he said at a press conference in Annapolis. “That would mean the reopening of certain types of businesses and lower-risk community, religious, and quality-of-life activities.”

But Bowser said Wednesday that D.C. wasn’t ready to follow Maryland or Virginia in making any significant changes to the city’s stay-at-home-order, which formally expires on May 15 but could be extended.

“We do not have a reopening or a Phase One date in place yet,” she said. “We are looking at several things before we enter Phase One of reopening. That includes a sustained period of declining cases, looking at where we are with our hospital capacity, also looking at how we’ll be able through all the phases of reopening to test and track people coming back into the economy.”

While the three leaders have said in recent weeks they were aiming for some degree of regional coordination, Hogan admitted that each jurisdiction would have to consider its own circumstances before deciding how to proceed on lifting restrictions imposed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We all have different things in our different areas. They’re not all the same. Mayor Bowser doesn’t have any rural areas in D.C., whereas Gov. Northam and I do,” he said. “There’s little differences about the timing of when we closed things or what orders we took. We never were completely in sync.”

Hogan said the three leaders did talk about the federal workforce and Metro system that spread across their jurisdictions in the Washington region.

Northam said on Monday that hospitals in Virginia are under capacity, personal protective equipment is available to meet demand, and that while case counts are not steadily decreasing, the growth rate seems to be slowing. And he said that reopening would be gradual, with businesses having to follow social distancing norms and use protective equipment.

Still, Bowser hinted Wednesday at some displeasure with Northam’s announcement that some businesses may be allowed to reopen in mid-May.

“What we see in all the jurisdictions — D.C., Maryland and Virginia — are growing case counts and continued community transmission. So we know that opening up and people mixing in various ways will lead to increased infections. We do think that seeing decreasing case counts, increasing testing and contact tracing is the only way to open up safely,” she said.

Latino and African American activists in Northern Virginia are also criticizing any possible mid-May reopening, saying they’re suffering the brunt of COVID-19 infections. And on Wednesday Northam also came under criticism from Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia), himself a former governor, who said he would favor letting Northern Virginia reopen in coordination with D.C. and Maryland, instead of before them.

“Virginia is a huge state and I have said publicly that I hope the governor will consider looking at this on a regional basis. It’s hard for me to imagine where I live, Northern Virginia, that you could open Northern Virginia without doing that in concert with D.C. and Maryland,” he said.

Those criticisms seemed to have swayed Northam, who backtracked slightly on Wednesday, saying during a press conference in Richmond that he would consider giving counties in Northern Virginia — which has the lion’s share of the state’s case count — flexibility in deciding when to lift restrictions and allow businesses to reopen.

“Northern Virginia obviously has higher numbers than other areas of the state,” he said. “I was in a call yesterday with Governor Hogan and Mayor Bowser. We realize that the Greater Washington area is an area that we need to pay particular attention to. We’ve also been talking to local leaders in places like Alexandria, Arlington and Fairfax County. As we get closer if they have concerns and want to raise that floor for another week or whatever they think is necessary, we’ll work with them on that.”

As for D.C., last week they said that any likely reopening of businesses or lifting of current restrictions could lead to a second wave of COVID-19 cases. They said that any decision to reopen will be based on specific metrics — including 14 days of declining positive case counts — and could come as early as June or as late as July

For the time being, she said D.C. residents should continue operating as they have for the last two months. And that will mean staying home, even if Maryland and Virginia start opening up first.

“D.C. residents and D.C. government employees are under a stay-at-home order, and they should only be going out for essential work, exercise, food, medicine and supplies,” she said. “That stay-at-home order has not changed. What we know is that when the economies — whether they are around us or around the nation — start opening up, more people will get infected. So D.C. residents who are participating in non-essential activities, no matter the jurisdiction, put D.C., their households, their neighbors, people they’re on public transportation with, at risk.”